Destiny
by SociallyObscene
Summary: A sound like a damaged violin crawls out of his mouth in a whisper. "My dream is New York." The word "destiny" is hanging off his lips. Fang takes my hand and pulls me to the buildings and streetlights of Brooklyn. "But-" I start. "The train already left." I stop, not sure - it's been two years. "Come on, Max," he says, "let's get lost." ONE-SHOT. AU.


**Oh, look! I made a one-shot! I've been having a hard time deciding on which one of my stories I really want to focus on - maybe I'll pick two or three to regularly update - but it'll probably be Unrequited and Teaching Methods - I MIGHT want to update No Contact, but with slower ones. It's just prioritizing. I'm at a stand still with Solicit, don't know where that's heading, and each time I write it I can't help but want to kill off everyone and give like 80 POVs. Yeah. Bad.**

**This might be a little OOC, and I think it is, but it's too goddamn cute for me to care. So, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: JP owns Maximum Ride, and I don't own any of the songs or brands here mentioned. **

* * *

I once asked him why he chose me.

"Because of your eyes." That was his enigmatic response. I remember him laughing at it - calling it destiny. He matured into an adult while still a child; he was so purely simple, yet so reckless. There were times when I feared that I held something fragile, bound to break at any moment.

He smiled and called it something so simple - destiny. And I believed him then, but I can't anymore. I can't smile. The boy I fell in love with that never had a chance to really understand what innocence meant could put blind trust in me, and while I was sure it would only lead to my destruction, I couldn't let it go.

Before I knew it, I was clinging onto those words. If it was destiny that we met, then it must've been destiny that we'd part as well.

I moved to New York - Brooklyn, to be exact. And now I stand in my one bedroom flat, during my second winter away from London. I haven't seen my parents, and I haven't seen him, either. I'm not sure it's necessarily a bad thing, either. There are so many inconsequential nothings I want to ask him, but I know I could never ask them:

"Why did you stay in London when you've always dreamed of Manhattan?"

"Why did you change your number?"

"What have you been doing these past two years?"

"Why didn't you ever try to contact me?"

I don't think I can actually see him long enough to strike a semi-awkward conversation, it will end before I can even start.

I don't remember much about the last time I saw him. I can only recall blurs of morning light after A Levels ended, the colours of my dirt soaked trainers seeping into my socks, my ankles. A scream. A glass breaking.

I've been piling on lies since then.

It's not as if I don't want to see him. I just don't know if we fought at all on that last day, and I know if I see his face again, I'll remember. Even so, I can't find an answer that'll help me fill this distance between us.

It's already 22:45 when I get to the subway. I know it's late, but at times where I think too much, I wander around Manhattan - sometimes to Time Square, sometimes to one of the many parks in East Village, or to where the World Trade Center used to stand before 9/11 memorials took its place.

I don't know where I'm heading while I wait on the platform. I take a deep breath, shivering as spurts of chilly air infiltrate my lungs. There aren't as many people as there would have been given the time would be two hours prior, but there are still some. The city truly never sleeps.

"The train is now arriving on track three. Please step behind the yellow line..." A voice drones. Most conversation becomes muffled by the hum of the oncoming train. Wind laps at my face like a dog, diluting my senses, but I can hear one particular voice over everything.

"Bollocks! Come _on, _I even went to exchange my quid for these goddamn American dollars!" There's a pounding on a machine, a sigh of utter hatred for the inanimate object. Familiarity attacks my senses, digging underneath my skin and pulling my hair. It's painful.

I turn, just to see Fang Walker kicking a vending machine, muttering insults at it. He looks different - it's his style. He's ditched the band tees and now sports a flannel and khakis. I'm somewhat impressed by his loyalty to obscene fashion trends he's retrieved from the years and has mismatched to his own perfection. His eyes, although full of determination to retrieve his bag of crisps, are duller and less vibrant. His hair is disheveled, like he hasn't slept in a few days, and upon closer examination, his posture sags.

His Vans clad feet kick at the machine again, and this time, a bag of crisps lay at the foot of it. Fang snatches at it, a grin spreading infectiously to the rest of his features in a way I haven't seen in years. I can't help but laugh.

I notice my mistake just a hair too soon, cupping my mouth with my hand, but his eyes have already locked onto mine, a brown so dark it seems black, obsidian. I frown. They used to be chocolate. My head swivels to greet the oncoming train, but he's seen me.

"Max?" The way he says my name thaws out the January chill that has settled onto my skin. I swallow and nod.

"Yeah, Fang, it's me."

He takes a step forward and starts to trace shapes on my arm absentmindedly, but he's shocked to see me, letting his habits come forward out of hysteria. "I never expected you to be in Brooklyn," Fang says, quirking an eyebrow. "You could call this destiny."

I blink. "Destiny."

The very notion of fatalism is preposterous. If everything were predestined from the very beginning, then there would be no such thing as free will, no reason for even living. There'd be nothing left over.

"Max," Fang says, breaking me out of my stupor with his cockney accent, "you were just going all brain again, weren't you?"

_How did he know? It's been so long. _I bite my lip. "Maybe."

He flashes his teeth in a lopsided grin. "It was your eyes."

"Why are you here?" I suddenly blurt, blinking back frustrated tears. _Why are you reopening wounds?_

"I could ask you the same thing."

"No, you couldn't," I point out, "because I've lived here for two years."

He frowns. "Your accent _did _seem a bit strange-"

"Why? Why after so long?"

Fang looks at me wistfully, dropping his arm from mine, ceasing his absentminded tracing of circles, squares, triangles. In his once chocolate eyes lie all the questions I've wanted to ask, but the flash of curiosity is gone as soon as I recognize it, like an ember touching solid earth. For a split second, before his voice regains its composure, a sound like a damage violin crawls out of his mouth in a whisper, "My dream is in New York." _Destiny _is hanging off of his lips.

Fang takes my hand and pulls me to the buildings and streetlights of Brooklyn. "But-"

"The train already left."

I stop, not sure. It's been two years; I don't know what he's even been doing. "Yeah, but-"

"Come on, Max," he says, "let's get lost."

* * *

I don't know if I would have pictured spending my first meeting in two years with Fang Walker strolling through Scarangella Park, humming Vampire Weekend whilst circuiting the dim track at midnight. I might have expected an awkward dinner, or a trip to the cinema, but not a ballad version of _Hannah Hunt _playing on Fang's lips as he danced in circles on the inner lane of the track.

The biting air seems nonexistent as we lap again on the fenced track. We've been walking for a while, probably four laps, and I can't believe that I'm walking alongside with my best friend, my boyfriend from college.

There's a shift in the clouds, and raw moonlight soaks into my skin. "What a beautiful shade of night," Fang comments dreamily. He's started humming the guitar solo to _Bohemian_ _Rhapsody_, and I can't help but hum along, frowning when I seem to be able to sound off-key.

"I don't see it." My eyes don't see the shade of night he's talking about.

"Close your eyes, then," he says, stopping at the track and tilting his head up to the sky. His face, for the first time in the evening, is peaceful. Soft wind laps at his hair and moves it to the current of the wind, and his shoulders aren't tense. Feeling a sudden urge, I close my eyes as well, but I can only see the opaque blackness.

"I don't see anything."

He looks at me, smirking. "You can't possibly know what happens when you blink."

We're silent then. It's a comfortable kind of silence, but no matter how hard I try, I still give Fang sidelong glances. I've done about two when he notices me, and each time we catch each other's gaze he starts making faces at me, unusual ones that I haven't been able to see since his impassive mask etched itself onto his face. He sticks his tongue out at me, crossing his eyes, and I can't help but laugh, but a part of it feels strangled. _Why haven't I been able to see this before?_

"How come we never kept in contact?" I suddenly ask.

Fang chuckles. "Long distance was cliché," he jokes. My laugh is awkward and stale. He frowns. "A lot of things happened."

_Is that why you changed your number? _But I know I can't ask him this question. The Fang in front of me isn't simple minded or innocent anymore. He's changed just as much as I have.

"What have you been doing these two years?" I can't help it. I've wanted to know for so long.

Fang stops walking, and I'm compelled to stop, too. Before I can say anything, he's turned to me and has his nose merely centimeters from my face. My breath hitches, and I swallow the string of coughs attempting to crawl out of my throat just as he says, "Murder."

I stare at him for a while, hoping to see through his stupid joke. When he bites his lip to keep from laughing, I shake my head. My palms press into his chest, and he's back in his lane. I don't feel as awkward, but I know he won't answer me seriously. My heart sinks.

"What have _you _been doing, Max?" Fang asks, a light smile fighting with his lips.

"Selling drugs." It's a lie.

"Is that how you got such a nice scarf?" He points to my polka-dotted muffler. He wrinkles his nose in an afterthought of distaste. "I'd never do drugs."

"Not even meth?"

"Not even meth," Fang confirms.

"Pity."

And then we're laughing like we don't live a few time zones away, like we're back in college and not in university.

We stay at the park until half past two, racing down the track and singing old Pink Floyd and David Bowie. We would've stayed until sunrise, but apparently our singing woke up a neighbour who thought two teenagers were getting high and having sex. It's half past two when Fang and I's obnoxious singing is severed in half by a distant flashlight and two voices yelling at us to stay in the fenced track area.

"Run." Fang doesn't say it twice, and soon we're scaling the four meter fence that surrounds the track, not taking the door just to add more drama to the chase. We run in the opposite direction of the policemen, laughing quietly not to draw attention to ourselves.

By the time Fang and I lose the police, we're giggling at our stupidity. We're drunk off each other and the moonlight, the shine of the stars barely guiding our way.

We stop at a rusted and decaying playground, how far away from the rest of the world, I'm not sure. A lone swing set for two sits at the far corner, a rusty set of monkey bars in the middle. Slides wind around the monkey bars in convoluted swirls, colours exploding in a silvery shimmer. The rings of the monkey bars are sharp and jut at my fingers as I climb to the top of the structure. Fang climbs next to me. I'm out of breath, and so is he, our breathing jumbling with the wind and creaking life of the playground.

"I've missed you, Max," Fang says suddenly, and I blink, looking at him. There's no smirk that he's trying to hide this time. Before I have any time to process what he's said, Fang's lips are on mine, and we're kissing on top of the monkey bars somewhere in Scarangella Park in Brooklyn, New York. It's a slow kiss, lazy yet passionate, perfect for it being three in the morning. _Where have you been? _I think, but it's over all too soon, and the combined body heat is gone - just the crisp half morning air.

"I'm sorry," Fang says dejectedly. He jumps off the monkey bars. The whole structure rattles. "I shouldn't have done that."

I jump off as well. "What are you talking about?"

"I've caused trouble, coming to New York out of the blue." I blink. _What? I've had so much fun._

"I don't understand."

"I was studying at university, getting a degree I didn't know how to refuse," Fang says, "I wanted a break, and I knew I had a dream in Manhattan, but I found it in Brooklyn - freedom."

I frown. "Fang-"

"I know it's been two years, and I shouldn't have come. I'll head back to London."

My feet and hands move on their own accord, and suddenly I've slapped him in the face. The sound of skin hitting skin resounds in my ears, louder than my erratic heartbeat.

"Are you an idiot?" I ask, balling my fists. I sigh. "I've missed you, too."

"Max," he argues, but it sounds like a plead.

"It's not a pity kind of missing, either. I have thought about you for so long. I didn't know what to do when you changed your number - it was the last thing I had left of us. I kept thinking, 'when am I going to find the answer to fill this space between us?' and I could only feel hopeless."

"It's weird, huh? I think the same things."

"Exactly! You're supposed to be in New York with me, free."

He smirks. "I'll believe it when I see it."

Now I'm the one talking about destiny, and he's the one laughing, saying it doesn't exist. All this time, Fang was the one who chalked it up to answers - after all, he always told me that I couldn't possibly know what happens when we blink.

Maybe when I closed my eyes, when I blinked, he was waiting for me, and I just didn't notice it.

But when I close my eyes now, nothing about the world changes. The trees are still trees, the snow still crunches under Fang's Vans, and he still kissed me. In that one moment, only I became a version of myself he didn't know.

My movements are of their own accord as I kiss him. His must, too, because he's kissing me back, letting go of his misconceptions.

* * *

"I'm coming to Brooklyn soon," Fang's voice is raspy over the phone, but I can feel his smile press against the receiver, time zones away.

"How soon?"

"Three days."

"Think the weather will be nice when you come?"

Little by little, Fang and I fill in the gaps made by our time apart. He told me there would be a time where we'd actually part, that if meeting was destiny, so was separation. He said it was fate for me to release his hand that I held - it was predestined.

"Hey, Fang?"

"Yeah?"

"How come my eyes told you to choose me?"

"Because, Max," he breathes, "your eyes are full of interesting things."

"Like what?"

"The yellow flecks in your chocolate eyes?"

I blink. "I've never noticed that." I make my way to a mirror, and sure enough, there are yellow flecks dancing around my pupil in a circle.

"They're beautiful."

"Stop being a romantic flirt," I chastise, wanting to elbow him in the ribs.

"Fine. Then _I'm _beautiful."

I just laugh.

Whatever happens, happens - that's destiny, right?

* * *

**A lot of this was just dialogue practice, because I tend to just make short conversations that don't necessarily work or fulfill my expectations. This is basically just me trying to lengthen it up, you know? Tell me what you thought!**

_-SOCIALLYOBSCENE_


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